If you're trying to travel nonstop from Palm Springs to Vegas, take your own car

A popular shortcut to Las Vegas goes through Mojave Desert, but it can be tricky as the route have road blocks due to construction. It' can also get very dark at night. (Feb. 24, 2017)
Daniel Simon/The Desert Sun

No nonstop air or ground service to Las Vegas from Palm Springs leaves you with driving your own car as the fastest transportation.

Whether you are spending the weekend or going for business, a trip to Las Vegas from Palm Springs can take you at least four hours on the road. But this is most likely your fastest (and cheapest) option.

While Palm Springs International Airport will serve 20 nonstop destinations this year, Vegas isn’t one of them.

Currently, all available flights to Vegas have connections in airports such as in Ontario, Los Angeles or San Francisco.

If you remember flying nonstop from PSP to Vegas, you are not wrong. United Airlines offered these flights for almost a decade but discontinued its services in the fall of 2014 due to the fact that “the route was not meeting their expectations,” PSP Executive Director Thomas Nolan said.

The airline operated the service with a small, 30-seat propeller aircraft which has mostly phased out of their fleet, Nolan explained.

“However, that city remains on the list of airline discussions because several airlines have a significant presence there and it could be an attractive connecting airport from PSP to other cities around the United States,” Nolan added.

There are many factors that influence air services between two destinations, including where most tourists are coming from.

These flights, mostly seasonal, assure enough passenger demand and also take into account availability of equipment, staff and other required resources. After considering all these factors, the airline decides whether or not the service can be sustained.

In a 12-month Visitor Profile and Perceptions Study conducted by the Greater Palm Springs Convention & Visitors Bureau, 2 percent of visitors came to Palm Springs from Nevada in 2015. The same number of visitors came from states like New York, Colorado and Texas.

Las Vegas VisaVue Data, a trend report provided by CVB, shows that the number of Las Vegas cardholders in the Coachella Valley increased by 5.1 percent from 2016 to 2017. The report also shows an increase of 9 percent in the amount that cardholders spent in the valley.

However, tourism officials said no data is available on the number of visitors traveling either by road or air, making it difficult to fully analyze passenger demand.

Regional connections can be risky for airlines as they struggle to fill an increased number of seats. The CVB can offer incentives to airlines to mitigate any revenue loss. Although Vegas isn’t on the priority list as the CVB evaluates other regional destinations like Sacramento, President/CEO Scott White says the bureau is open to discussion.

Greyhound and FlixBus offer no nonstop services from the Coachella Valley to Las Vegas. Trips can take between 5 to 10 hours with one or more stops.

Greyhound currently offers services via LA or Sacramento from its Thousand Palms and Indio stations.

“In terms of establishing a direct route between Palm Springs and Las Vegas, at this time, we don’t see a high demand for nonstop service between those two markets,” a Greyhound spokesperson said in an email. “... We will continue to evaluate the route and consider adding nonstop service if there is an increase in demand in the future.”

Uber or Lyft: Both services offer pick-up and drop-off to a wide range of destinations, and cost half of conventional cab services charge.
Duration: About four hours
Cost: $365 - $380

FlixBus: The German bus service provider offers two to three departure between Palm Springs pick-up locations to downtown Las Vegas, with one transfer in Los Angeles.
Duration: Eight to 10 hours
Cost: $9.98 - $39.98

Greyhound: The popular intercity bus provider offers service from its Thousand Palms and Indio stations, with one or more transfers.
Duration: Five-and-a-half to seven hours
Cost: $36 - $71

Palak Barmaiya is a news intern at The Desert Sun. You can reach her at 760.778.4624 or pbarmaiya@gannett.com.